Homework, Ostensibly
by Shrrgnien
Summary: Somewhere in the galaxy, there is a concept of free time. That place is not the royal palace of Naboo.


"Right," says Saché. "What month were you born in?"

"On what planet?" Sabé asks pedantically.

"_Naboo_. Bantha-breath."

Padmé sighs.

They are, ostensibly, doing homework. One of the aspects of the Queen's handmaidens they wouldn't put in the recruitment ads, if they had recruitment ads; until they're of age, everyone is still expected to keep up with their respective studies. And that's on top of the range time, physical conditioning, tactical seminars and crisis drills, and mountains of etiquette and deportment classes that are part and parcel with the job. And even _that_ ignores the time they actually spend, oh, guarding and attending the Queen of Naboo.

Somewhere in the galaxy, there is a concept of free time. That place is not the royal palace.

Every so often, Padmé just blocks off a slow day for everyone to catch up on the work they've inevitably ended up neglecting. As it so happens, today was not one of them. It was _meant_ to be a vacation. She'd even managed to justify it; hunting and hawking, she'd insisted, are an essential part of Naboo's culture and history. They'd planned the day to be exhausting but invigorating—a fast, hard romp across the grasslands.

There's another peal of thunder outside, and the rain lashing against the windows intensifies. Somehow.

"Good weather for Gungans," Yané says cheerfully. She's sitting cross-legged on the floor, fiddling with the radio settings as she flicks through news channels at the speed of light. She has her homework out, sort of, in the sense that her etiquette assignment is blinking on a datapad on the other side of the room.

"Yané!" Padmé protests. "The Gungans are our friends and allies."

"And, as an amphibious culture, rain and water hold great significance and are regarded as good luck and positive omens," Eirtaé says calmly. She glances up with a placid smile. "_You're_ behind on your Galactic Cultures readings, Your Highness."

Padmé coughs. Sabé is too lazy to actually turn her head to look up at her queen, but she gropes around above her head until she is able to pat something that's probably a hand.

"Oh, look," says Saché, who is scanning through several different trashy holojournals nearby. "Chancellor Palpatine got secretly married."

"Again?" asks Padmé, amused. "Naboo, Coruscant or Corellia?"

"Uh... Someplace called Endor, this time. It doesn't say who to. I don't think they thought that far ahead."

Sabé is faintly impressed. At least they're getting creative. So far the tabloids have married the Chancellor off to three different Senators, and Master Windu twice.

"Who invented _imaginary numbers?_"

Padmé tries very hard not to laugh at the despair in Rabé's voice. Sabé can tell, because her head is resting on her Queen's stomach, and the suppressed laughter is jostling her head. She grumbles and shifts slightly.

"I'm very sorry, Sabé." Padmé doesn't bother holding back her laugh this time, but draws gentle fingers through her decoy's hair as an apology. Yané flicks through, in quick succession, advertisements for grav-car insurance, an all-you-can-eat flatcake breakfast deal (purchase required, terms and conditions apply), hypoallergenic plasti-foam, and what sounds like some kind of Huttese opera for the brief moment Yané lets it play before the shrieks of pain and horror from everyone else in the room have her flicking through channels again.

"Sorry," she says hurriedly. "I'm trying to find a music station."

Sabé senses rather than sees Padmé shaking her head.

"Eirtaé," the Queen calls lightly over Yané's muttering and the radio's cheerful encouragements to purchase, for a limited time only, full synthleather interiors for certain models of speeder. "What are you working on, anyway?"

Eirtaé hums, tapping a mag-pen idly against the edge of her datapad. "Hrm? Oh, nothing really. Some quick-response prompts. It's surprisingly difficult condensing the ethical and imperialist issues of the management of the _Mother Vima_ into a single paragraph."

"I'm allowed to do bullet points," Saché says helpfully.

"Are you? Wonderful."

Padmé sounds surprised. "That's awfully basic for you, isn't it? Weren't you writing your thesis on...oh, what was it, it was just last month..."

Eirtaé answers vaguely, "The Legal and Cultural Ramifications of the Inherent Attitudes of the Kwilaan Mission and Their Long-Term Effects and Impact on the Eventual Fall of the Jafan Dynasty."

"Yes," says Padmé. "That."

Eirtaé gives a careless shrug. "I'm not complaining, my lady."

"I see."

Sabé suspects, and is fairly certain Padmé agrees, that there is at most a 40% chance that Eirtaé is actually working on her _own_ homework and will likely be doing suspiciously few chores for the next two weeks. She is absolutely positive nobody cares.

The radio, which just so happens to be right next to Sabé's head, finally plays something recognizable as music, sort of. Yané punches the air in triumph.

"Finally!" She turns up the music. "I love this one."

"Go for it," Saché laughs as Yané bursts into an impromptu dance. Yané laughs and performs a clumsy, exaggerated pirouette before spinning away to tap an answer into her etiquette worksheet.

Sabé reaches out quickly and turns the volume down. She sighs, tapping her datapad screen to wake it back up. She's completed a grand total of four out of her twenty-three logic problems in the past three hours.

The Handmaidens of Naboo. They are a highly-trained and elite corps of protectors.

Saché, who has been steadily working her way through six months' back-issue of _TheedB__OP_ all afternoon, clears her throat.

"Sabé," she says. "Favorite color?"

Sabé sighs. "Didn't we just do this one?"

"What? No." Saché turns the datapad so Sabé can see it. She's stretched out in a manner that could be loosely described as 'on a couch', except that her legs are flung over the back and her head is dangling almost to the floor. By comparison, Sabé having dragged a large ottoman over to the sofa where Padmé is reclining to observe the chaos looks almost dignified, when she's not prodding her queen in the side to get her to stop moving. "That one was Wookie star signs, this is What Starship Are You. Totally different."

"It's the exact same questions!"

"You're no fun," Saché decides. "Padmé, what's your favorite color?"

Padmé sighs. "I have an essay outline due in five hours..." she hedges.

"C'mon, your highness," Saché wheedles. "Sabé did one!"

"Sabé did eight," corrects Sabé. _Planet A is fourteen light-years closer to the Core than Nebula 1. Planet B is five light-years further from the Core than Space Station 2. __Nebula 1 is closer to the Core than Planet B. If the first two statements are true..._

"Padmé," Saché insists. "What's your favorite color?"

Padmé laughs and rests her pad on Sabé's forehead. "My favorite color," she muses. "That would have to be...oh, emerald. The color of sunlight through leaves in high summer—all those shifting shades in the trees?"

Saché nods sagely.

"So, like...green? I'm putting green. Odd or even numbers? Just, the first answer that pops into your head."

Padmé sounds extremely bemused.

"Even," she answers.

"How are imaginary numbers_ negative?_" Rabé demands. "They're _imaginary!_ Can imaginary numbers even _be_ negative? Am I doing this right?"

Saché sits an approximation of up, suddenly looking interested. "I'll trade you taking notes for my Xeno-Anatomy chapter."

Rabé looks at her like she's the answer to every prayer in the galaxy. "_Please_."

Padmé clears her throat.

Both of them look glum again. "Yes'm."

Yané dances back from her brief stint at productivity, and turns the music back up.

"This is a good one!" she squeals.

Eirtaé looks up and raises an eyebrow. "Just because it's _popular_..."

"Quiet, you." Yané, who is apparently familiar with the song, holds up a finger until there is some sort of musical cue, and then spins on the spot and mimes hitting an assortment of random spots in the air that are presumably meant to imitate drums in, apparently, zero gravity.

Padmé laughs delightedly, and Sabé grins as well. What Yané lacks in coordination and talent, she's certainly making up for in enthusiasm.

"Come on, Saché," she calls, twirling one last time before giving a deep bow to Padmé, who claps and shakes her head. Sabé uses the distraction to turn the radio down again.

Saché tosses her datapad aside eagerly, where it joins the three other datapads she's supposed to be using to take her Anatomy notes. "Rabé," she says with a laugh. "Get out of there, live a little."

Rabé, who has barricaded herself under a dining table with two datapads and an Algebra-induced existential crisis, looks distinctly relieved when Saché pulls one of the chairs away and drags her out.

"Your Highness," Saché calls while she's in the far corner. "Can I crack the window? The air flow would be amazing."

Padmé grants her permission with a wave. "Try not to get anything wet," she begs, and Saché is dutifully careful as she adjusts the glass pane. They might get a bit of rain on the floor, but that's not really anything to worry about. And she's right. The storm has cut the summer heat, and the scent of rain feels almost as incredible as the rush of cool, fresh air.

Saché pulls Rabé over to the others just in time for Yané to lean over and turn the volume up in the middle of some sort of autotuned horn solo that apparently requires a lot of rapid arm-waving. Eirtaé pointedly ignores them.

The conclusion of the piece sees Rabé bouncing onto Sabé's ottoman as the station segues into a commercial break.

"Sabé," she begins sweetly.

Sabé raises an eyebrow.

"No."

Rabé pouts. "Please?"

"No."

She actually bats her eyes. "_Pleeeease?_"

Sabé sketches a random diagram that has nothing to do with her current assignment. "I'm not dancing."

"You don't love me," Rabé determines, with a devestated expression only slightly ruined by the smirk tugging at her lips.

Sabé looks at her.

Rabé's eyelashes flutter entreatingly.

"...Fine."

Rabé looks exceedingly pleased with herself as Sabé switches her datapad off and tosses it toward the Queen's feet.

"Pushover," says Eirtaé.

"You're next," Sabé warns her. Eirtaé rolls her eyes and settles more firmly into her comfortable armchair.

The station's last commercial fades out (fifteen-percent-off windscreen tinting if you buy now!) and is replaced with three terrifyingly familiar chords.

"Oh no," says Saché.

"Not this one," Rabé moans.

"Not _again_," Sabé agrees.

"YES!" cries Yané.

Eirtaé looks vaguely ill.

"You," she informs Yané, "Are _never_ allowed to have stimcaf again."

Yané is either ignoring her, or genuinely beyond hearing.

"You have to do the dance," she insists. "You _have_ to."

Sabé turns to her lady.

"Help," she says flatly. Padmé smirks and holds her hands out helplessly.

"You heard the lady," she says.

"I hate you."

This song, which is called either _Starcrossed_ or _Name in the Stars_ or _Forever_ or _By the Force Please Turn It Off I Can't Take It Anymore_ depending on who you ask, has somehow been hovering at the top of the charts in half the galaxy for the past month. Nobody had ever heard of the group before the song's unexplained popularity, no one is entirely certain what the song is about, but it is utterly impossible to escape.

When a pop sensation has become a fact of life in the middle of the royal palace of Naboo, it has officially taken on a life of its own. Whatever the song is called, Sabé is reasonably certain it is the unholy offspring of pure evil and unadulterated joy.

"Does this song even have_ lyrics?_" Saché laughs as Yané uses the first verse to demonstrate a series of twists and jumps—at least Sabé thinks it's a verse, the singer seems to be speaking Basic but is whining so much she can only make out the occasional phrase. Usually, something like "pain" or "bliss" or "cerulean orbs".

Yané smiles blindingly. "I have _no idea_. Okay, here it comes. Padmé, come on, you have to do it too!"

"Do I?" Padmé says mildly, setting her half-finished legislative analysis outline aside. "Well, then, if I must."

There's cheering as she rolls off the sofa just in time for that beautiful, horrific musical crescendo leading up to what is both the sole reason for the song's viral popularity, and the only section of the lyrics anyone in the galaxy actually knows.

Whatever this stunning atrocity of a song is called, the chorus is a thing of beauty.

"I'LL WRITE YOUR NAME IN THE STARS!"

There don't actually seem to be any notes involved. At least, not judging by the holovid that rocketed the song to the top of the charts. The object of the chorus is not to _sing_, per se, but rather to immediately drop whatever you're doing, grab the nearest object, strike the most spectacularly pathetic pose allowed by your respective anatomies, and scream as loudly as physically possible.

Their composure lasts for about half of the first line. Yané hits herself in the face with a lamp and falls over, which sets Rabé cackling and stumbling back against Saché, but they fight gamely on to finish the chorus.

"A LOVE SO NEAR AND SO FA-A-AR!"

"I hate myself," Saché wheezes. Sabé, who had hit the second line by throwing herself to the ground, is pulled to her feet by Padmé just in time to collapse dramatically into her arms for the next one.

"THOUGH LIFE KEEPS RAISING THE—_Ow._"

"I can't hit that note and I'm not trying," Yané acknowledges from the ground.

"Eirtaé, get over here!"

"Not happening."

Sabé, who is having none of that, smirks and hits the next line falling to her knees and clutching her chest in a parody of heartbreak.

"AND LOSING YOU LEAVES A SCAAAAAAAAR..."

"No," says Eirtaé. Sabé pushes herself up and finishes the final line perched on Eirtaé's armrest, draping herself over her fellow handmaiden and ignoring the death glare it earns her.

"YOU KNOW I'LL WRITE YOUR NAME IN THE STAAAAAAAA—Captain Panaka!"

"Wait, what?"

Saché, attempting to freeze mid-pose, overbalances, trips over Yané and manages to faceplant into a pillar. Rabé is interrupted in the process of throwing herself into an unprepared Padmé's arms, and sends them both toppling backwards.

"OW."

"Sorry, Your—"

"That was my face..."

"Sabé—!"

"Saché, get off my _spleen_—"

"_Ow_."

There is, aside from a few pained groans, silence. Yané is still flat on her back holding a hairbrush. She's halfway pinned by Saché, whose eye is already starting to bruise. Rabé has disappeared between a plush ottoman and the couch, tangled in a knot of limbs and partially on top of Her Royal Highness Queen Amidala of Naboo. And Sabé is sprawled practically in Eirtaé's lap, holding a potted plant like a voice amplifier while pop music wails in the background.

Captain Panaka looks vaguely shell-shocked.

"Hello," Sabé says weakly.

Either Rabé or Padmé's hand fights it way out from where they're crushed between the sofa and the ottoman, and switches the radio off.

"Um," says Panaka into the sudden silence. "Your Highness? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, Captain."

There is a long pause.

"What's going on?" Panaka sounds like he would very much like to be rescued from the situation.

Padmé clears her throat. Her voice is muffled when she answers.

"We're doing homework, Captain."

There is another, longer, pause.

Then, faintly, Yané starts giggling.

It's infectious. Saché falls prey first, pressing a fist to her mouth in a desperate attempt to maintain some sort of decorum until she finally snorts violently and rolls onto her back gasping for breath. That does it for Rabé, who shrieks quietly from behind the ottoman; and then Sabé realizes that Eirtaé is sobbing with laughter into her shoulder and gives up.

"Right," says Panaka. "I'm leaving now."

"Stay, Captain," Eirtaé chokes out. "Everything's..."

"Under control," Sabé whimpers, curling into a ball and covering her face in a desperate attempt to avoid the eye contact that keeps setting her off. Her chest hurts from laughing, but she can't stop.

"Help," Rabé squeaks from her prison, and Padmé's peal of breathless laughter is a sign that either she's stopped trying to muffle it or is no longer capable.

Panaka clears his throat.

"Your Highness," he calls, raising his voice just enough to be heard. "I only came by to remind you that there's a formal banquet tomorrow night, and I'm running a surprise live-fire course in the morning. First thing."

There are groans, but only halfhearted ones, as most of them are still trying to breathe.

"It's raining!" Yané protests. Sabé groans before the maniacal light even flares in Panaka's eyes. She really wishes she was less familiar with it.

"Yes, it is," he says happily. "Droids go out at dawn, Your Highness." He bows politely. "Enjoy the evening."

"I hate you," whispers Yané.

"Oh," says Saché. "Captain!"

Panaka pauses, looking wary. "Yes...?"

"What's..." Saché twitches with the effort to keep a straight face, and fails. "What's your favorite color?"

The faint thread of dignity that had almost managed to form in the room snaps, and they dissolve into fits of convulsive laughter again.

At some point, Panaka walks out. None of them actually notice.

Absolutely no homework is done that night.


End file.
